The final design of the new wing of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, under construction and set to open in 2016. This aerial view is from the east, looking toward Howard Street

The final design of the new wing of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, under construction and set to open in 2016. This aerial view is from the east, looking toward Howard Street

Photo: Courtesy SFMOMA/Snøhetta / Courtesy SFMOMA/Snøhetta

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The proposed addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern would double the amount of the institution's gallery space and include several outdoor terraces. This view shows a new public path from Howard Street that would lead to the museum's raised entrycourt in the middle of the block. less

The proposed addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern would double the amount of the institution's gallery space and include several outdoor terraces. This view shows a new public path from Howard Street ... more

An artist's presentation of the new SFMOMA expansion planned in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, November 30, 2011.

An artist's presentation of the new SFMOMA expansion planned in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, November 30, 2011.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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An artist's presentation of the new SFMOMA expansion planned in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, November 30, 2011.

An artist's presentation of the new SFMOMA expansion planned in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, November 30, 2011.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Image 13 of 13

SFMOMA has ambitious plans during 3-year hiatus

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When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art goes dark for nearly three years after it breaks ground in June 2013 for an expansion that promises to cost more than $300 million, art venues around the Bay Area and California will keep highlights of SFMOMA's collections in view.

SFMOMA also has asked contenders for its biennial 2013 SECA Art Award to devise works for presentation at various locations still to be determined, and has plans to circulate exhibitions drawn from holdings of Japanese and Mexican photography to yet-to-be-selected museums in California.

"One of the things we're trying to do here," SFMOMA director Neal Benezra said, "is create an SFMOMA that is more generous and engaged with the public than most contemporary art museums are. I think most of them tend to speak more to each other than to the public. So we wrote a strategic plan last year for an institution that's more accessible and welcoming to the community."

"If you look at Snøhetta's work," Benezra said, referring to the museum expansion's Scandinavian architects, "it's very open and hospitable. ... I'd love that psychology to continue and expand in the future."

SFMOMA's staff members and their counterparts at other museums are still planning which prominent and lesser-known works from its collections will go on exhibit, but first on the interim agenda, in 2013, will be a show of 60-odd works in all media from SFMOMA staged by the Contemporary Jewish Museum. It will include defining works by Piet Mondrian and Mark Rothko and have art and spirituality as a theme. It will involve curators from multiple disciplines and both institutions.

"In the last month, we've really been working on putting the sequence of projects in place and themes that made sense in each venue," said SFMOMA senior curator Janet Bishop. "The CJM checklist is pretty well set, but all the others are still in development."

In 2014, lending photographs in the main, SFMOMA will partner with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to present a cross-disciplinary survey of the arts in South Africa after apartheid. Also in 2014, senior curators from SFMOMA and the Asian Art Museum will collaborate on a show, drawing deeply on their respective collections, surveying the cultural roots of various ideas of beauty.

SFMOMA has also commissioned Los Angeles architect Greg Lynn to build a floating architecture and design pavilion that will double as an outdoor exhibition venue and a viewing point for the 2013 America's Cup races.

Other plans include the first presentation in its entirety of Los Angeles media artist Doug Aitken's epic three-part video "Empire" (20o8-14). The artist is still scouting venues for the piece, which is intended for projection on outdoor walls or billboards.

During the hiatus, some staff members will be busy consolidating all the museum's holdings under one roof at a recently acquired building at an undisclosed location in South San Francisco. Until now, collection storage has been divided among three locations, including SFMOMA's Third Street building and an off-site warehouse.

"We've stored things at the Veterans Memorial Building since 1935," Benezra said, referring to the Civic Center building SFMOMA occupied as a tenant before it opened its dedicated building in 1995. Soon the Veterans Building will close for an upgrade of its own.

SFMOMA's open-handed board has already funded purchase of the South San Francisco building and its soon-to-be-begun redesign and build-out as top-drawer art storage.

"Most of the work of the museum takes place behind the scenes," Benezra said. During its downtime and preparations for reopening in 2016, the people involved in art handling, exhibition design, conservation and publications "will be as busy as ever."

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